Mr Ogg said: "The suggestion is that his second wife had been poisoned and you linked that with the fact you have never been happy about the way Claire met her death and you went to the police to say look at it again."

Ms Roberts replied: "Yes."

The witness also told the court that the day before Ms Morris died, she told Ms Roberts there was "something wrong" with her.

She said the two women went to a keep fit class in Tarves on 26 May, 1994, and afterwards spoke for about 20 minutes.

Ms Roberts told the court: "She said 'I'm not right. I'm tired and I can't concentrate'."

She was told on 28 May that her friend had died.

Under cross-examination, defence counsel Edgar Prais QC asked Ms Roberts: "Is it not true you have simply got it in for Malcolm Webster?" She denied this.

'Slightly confused'

The court also heard from retired paramedic Robert Gallon, who said he and a colleague were called to a crash in the early hours of 28 May, 1994.

He said that when they arrived the car was still ablaze and Mr Webster was standing beside the fire engine.

Mr Gallon was asked how Mr Webster appeared. He said: "Slightly confused. He said he was okay. He asked us on two or three occasions how his wife was. I felt I was not in a position to say his wife had died."

He said Mr Webster's hair, eyebrows and clothing were not singed.

Mr Webster stands accused of fraudulently obtaining more than £200,000 after cashing in insurance policies following the death of his first wife, who was from Oldmeldrum.

He is further charged with deliberately crashing his car in Auckland, in February 1999, in a bid to kill his second wife, Felicity Drumm, who was a passenger.

It is also alleged he intended to bigamously marry Simone Banarjee, from Oban, Argyll, to gain access to her estate and told her he was terminally ill with leukaemia when he was actually in good health.